Cashback

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

 

When I came across this on Netflix, I wasn’t sure what to make of it.  The description said that the main character starts working at a supermarket, where he discovers that he can freeze time, which is true.  It also says that he starts undressing customers to use as models for his sketching, which is also true.  From that description, I imagined a movie where that was all he did.  This isn’t the case.

It starts with Ben breaking up with his girlfriend, Suzy.  This leads to insomnia, which he finds difficult to deal with at first.  Rather than lament it, he decides to get a job at a supermarket, Sainsbury’s.  They’re hiring for the night shift and he has an extra eight hours.  Most of his new coworkers aren’t what you’d call role models.  Jenkins, the manager, is a sexual harassment suit waiting to happen.  Barry and Matt are always getting in to trouble.  Brian, another new hire, is a yellow belt in Kung Fu.  He seems to think he’s better at it than he is.  The only bright spot is Sharon, who Ben develops a crush on.

Through a voice over, Ben explains that the clock is his enemy.  Everyone deals with the clock in some way.  Sharon blocks it out, but Ben takes the opposite approach.  This is how he finds that he can slow or even stop time.  He’s able to freeze everyone in the supermarket so he can undress all of the women to use as models.  (There’s only one scene where he does this.)  It’s not stated how or even if he really can do this.  There are two scenes that would indicate that he can, although it could very easily be a delusion brought on by not getting enough sleep.

Instead of being a movie where he constantly thinks of new ways to take it to the next level, he incorporates it into his everyday life.  He’s able to put Jenkins in the middle of Barry and Matt playing with some food in the back room.  He’s also able to freeze a soccer match so he can get a drink.  The movie is more about Ben and Sharon developing a relationship.

The cover also seems to lend the impression that there’s a lot of nudity in the movie.  There is a lot, but it’s not as gratuitous as you might think.  Some of it is Ben narrating flashbacks to various times in his life when something important happened.  In one flashback, Ben and his friend find some girlie magazines.  In another, Ben’s recalling a female Swedish boarder walking naked from the shower to her room and how he was awestricken by the beauty of the female form.  (Ok.  So, the camera focuses on her from the neck down.  We’re all adults here.  Right?)

The thing that struck me the most odd was the use of cash back as one word.  I’ve never seen it used that way.  I don’t know if this is some sort of British usage or if it’s supposed to mean something.  There are a few scenes where it’s used.  Ben refers to working as getting cash back for his time and Sharon asks a customer if they want cash back.  I’d imagine that the title refers to the job, but I still don’t get the single-word thing.

I could see a lot of people looking at the cover, reading the description and moving right on to the next movie.  It does have a good story.  The problem is that it takes a while to get going.  It’s one of those movies that are hard to recommend.  You almost have to watch it when you’re in the mood for something different.  I think if I had been dragged to see it, I may not have liked it as much.  Basically, it’s the perfect movie for streaming. 

Cashback (Trailer Oficial)

Official Site

Hitler's Children (2011)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

Many years ago, I was thinking about how uncommon Hitler is as a last name.  I’m not sure if people with that surname changed it to avoid the negative association or if it simply wasn’t that common to begin with.  I don’t imagine it would be easy to have that as a last name, even if you weren’t closely related.  People would probably look at you, too afraid to even ask.

Hitler’s Children takes on several similar situations, looking at relatives of several people that were close to Hitler.  Rudolph Hoess, for instance, was commandant of Auschwitz.  His grandson, Rainer, made a trip to the former concentration camp to meet the descendants of survivors.  Monika Goeth, daughter of Amon Goeth, met a bartender who was in Plaszów.  When the bartender found out that her father ran the concentration camp, he became upset.  As a child, she had no idea what went on.

The movie is about how the relatives deal with being related to someone who committed atrocities.  Niklas Frank, whose father was the governor-general of occupied Poland, wrote a book condemning his father.  He tried to find instances where his father may have helped someone to no avail.  His siblings weren’t always that supportive.  Much of what is shown of him in the movie is his speaking to groups about the book.  Two of Himmler’s grandchildren had themselves sterilized so as not to continue the line.

It’s hard to condemn the descendants as they really didn’t do anything.  Rainer Hoess wasn’t even born when his grandfather was in command of Auschwitz.  Monika Goeth asked questions of her mother, but her mother was evasive about what was going on.  However, there is that sense of guilt and shame of knowing your relatives caused such devastation.  I’m not sure how I would explain to my children that I had an ancestor that committed war crimes.  It’s not the kind of thing I’d be able to really hide.  The Nazis wanted to eradicate anyone that wasn’t part of their grand plan.  (13 million people were killed, 6 million of whom were Jews.)

I think that a movie like this is going to be different depending on which generation you’re a part of.  People of my generation may know the names, but people of my parents’ generation grew up watching reports of World War II on the news.  Those of my grandparent’s generation may have even fought in the war.  The names will be more recognizable to some.

I do recommend watching the movie.  If you’re planning on watching it with your children, it should be safe for those 13 and above.  The only thing I might recommend doing is looking up some of the history.  The movie doesn’t really go into detail about the people involved, other than to say who they were and what the family member did during the war.  It’s assumed that you know a certain amount of information.  You might find yourself having to explain some of the context.

The interviews are mostly in German with some English.  I was able to watch the documentary on Netflix.  Some of the reviews on Netflix were complaining that they couldn’t get the subtitles, but Netflix does have them.  You just have to be sure to turn them on.  It’s also available on DVD through Netflix, although I’m not sure about subtitle availability.  (I’d imagine that they do have it.)

Lunopolis (2009)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

My mother once questioned why I watch so many bad movies for the first-review promotions we had on Epinions.  Mostly, it’s in hope of winning money.  Winning money was nice.  I’ve watched a lot of bad movies and I have gotten some money out of it.  However, not all of the movies are that bad.  I’ve found movies like Adrift in Tokyo, Dream and Doomsday Book.  Lunopolis is one of the better movies that I’ve seen in search of an entry.

The movie is set up as a documentary about The Church of Lunology and some of their strange beliefs.  At the core is some found footage.  (Yes, it’s a found-footage movie.  I’ll explain later why this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.)  The story goes that a radio-show host got a frantic call about people from the future living in a lunar colony and controlling our governments.  The caller sends the host a package containing, among other things, a Polaroid picture.  Several people set out to make a documentary based on said Polaroid picture.  (One of the people knows the host and occasionally receives things to look into.)

The picture is simply of a man with ghostly features.  He’s wearing modern-looking clothes, but the picture is dated from several decades ago.  Someone notices that there is a set of coordinates, which they then travel to.  This leads to discovering a bizarre jetpack-looking thing.  One of them tries it on and disappears momentarily.  The decide it’s best to leave it in the capable hands of a professor friend, but they keep a green, glowing gem.

On the campus, they’re approached by these Mormon-looking guys who are part of the Church of Lunology.  Lunology actually comes off more as Scientology, though, with promises of raising your level of awareness so that you can access past timelines.  It’s run by a guy named J. Ari Hilliard who has gone back in time, with others, to correct history.  It’s up to the documentary makers to decide what to do with the green gem.

If you’ve read my reviews of Apollo 18 and The Blair Witch Project, you’ll know I’m not a big fan of found-footage movies.  Part of the problem is that with a limited cast is you get limited interaction.  With The Blair Witch Project, it quickly devolves into three people yelling at each other or into the camera how scared they are.  At least Apollo 18 has training footage in the beginning, but is still three astronauts in a confined area discussing some big conspiracy.

Lunopolis resolves that by presenting it as a documentary rather than just the footage.  You have people being interviewed.  There are experts commenting on the stuff.  We even have fancy graphics showing us what the experts are explaining.  Here, you have a whole mythology.

In fact, I’d say that this movie suffers from the opposite problem.  There’s almost so much going on that it may be too much for someone to take in.  You have government conspiracies, Area 51, alien visitors that are actually humans from the future, alternate timelines, the Mayan Doomsday Prophecy and a major religion/pyramid scheme built around the whole thing.

From what I saw on the Netflix reviews, people seemed to fall into two camps.  There were those that turned it off after 15-30 minutes, saying how hokey/derivative/stupid it was and those that sat through the whole thing, only to realize what a great movie it was.  I fall into the latter group.  I’ll admit that the movie is not without flaws, but it does make you think.  (For instance, the main characters begin to question the chain of events early in the movie.  I don’t want to ruin anything, but if you make it all the way to the end, you should be able to figure it out.)

To be honest, I can see this being hit or miss with most people.  If you tell a group of friends about it, some will love it while the rest will probably turn it off after a few minutes.  I’m going to recommend it, especially if you like shows like Lost or anything else that relies on a complex story.  You do have to pay attention, though.


IMDb page

Bi-mong/Dream (2008)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

 

There’s this one Calvin and Hobbes I remember where Calvin is getting ready for school.  In the last panel, he wakes up and laments that his dreams are getting way too literal.  Dream is sort of like that, except that Jin is literally dreaming someone else’s life.  He comes to realize this when he dreams about being in a car accident at an intersection that he apparently recognizes.

He goes to the intersection to find that the accident really happened and that a woman, Ran, was driving.  The police initially dismiss him, but he knows details about the accident, like the kind of car behind Ran’s car.   The police arrest Ran, but she denies everything, claiming that she was asleep at the time.  (Damage to her car and a traffic photo don’t help her credibility.)

Jin and Ran come to realize that if both are asleep at the same time, she’ll begin to sleepwalk and he’ll dream about it.  Neither one has much control over it, but they find that if one stays awake, the other can sleep without incident.  They try taking turns staying awake without much luck.  This is because they both try staying up late before one goes to sleep.  (I wasn’t clear on why one didn’t go to sleep immediately.  You‘d think they’d just get into different sleep cycles.)

When both are asleep, the dreaming/sleepwalking get worse.  Ran is going to her ex’s place and making out with him.  He doesn’t mind, but she does and she wants it to stop.  Jin, meanwhile, pines for his ex.  (In his dreams, his ex seems to fill in for hers.)   Ran and Jin turn out to be polar opposites who seem to be growing closer.

This is not a movie for children.  There are several scenes that involve gore, pain and suffering.  In an attempt to stay awake, Jin tries inflicting pain on himself.  There are also other things that I can’t discuss without giving away the ending.  However, many adults will probably find some scenes disturbing.

I came across this movie while looking for titles that Netflix streams.  It looked interesting enough.  It wasn’t until later that I found out that this is directed and written by Ki-duk Kim, who also wrote and directed 3-Iron.  (I told my brother about this movie, as he also liked 3-Iron.)  It’s different from many movies that I’ve seen.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen unintentional dream control as a plot device and it works pretty well.

I’d recommend renting it.  (If you’re looking for it, you might find it under the Korean title, Bi-mong)  I don’t know that it’s going to be for everyone.  Most of the gory scenes don’t come until later in the movie.  Most adults should be able to handle it, though.  We’re not talking excessive.  I can also see a lot of people being turned off by the fact that it’s a foreign film.  (I found out through IMDb that Jin was talking in Japanese, which I didn’t pick up on.)  I’m sure there are a lot of aspects of this movie that I missed.  It’s one of those movies that I’ll probably come back to years later and see differently.

IMDb page

The Blair Witch Project

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

 

There are some movies that are really good. There are others that do well based solely on hype. I know it sounds harsh, but I think that The Blair Witch Project falls into the second category. For all the buildup and excitement surrounding the initial release of the movie, I found that there wasn’t much to it.

For those that have been living under a rock since 1999, The Blair Witch Project is about three people that set out to make a documentary on The Blair Witch. They get a couple of cameras and set out for the weekend. All three go missing, but their footage was found a year later and presumably edited together by someone. Heather, Mike and Josh are the three would-be documentary makers. (Heather Donahue, Michael Williams and Joshua Leonard play the three main characters. Apparently, they decided to keep their real names for simplicity.)

The movie starts out with the three getting ready for the documentary, talking about what they plan to do. The next phase of the movie consists of interviews of locals about The Blair Witch. Both parts don’t last very long, but do set up the movie pretty well. The bulk of the movie is Heather, Mike and Josh getting lost in the woods. They have a map and a compass, but apparently Heather can’t use a map very well.

They find some interesting areas, but get lost trying to get back. The map doesn’t even cover the area where they parked. It also seems that they can get turned around despite using a compass. I guess there wouldn’t have been much of a movie if one of them had GPS or an emergency flare.

Still, my main complaint is that the movie basically boils down to three people trying to get out of a forest when it really shouldn’t have been that hard. There really wasn’t that much suspense or that many scary moments. I suppose that it doesn’t help that I’ve seen some of the parodies, but it really isn’t a very scary movie. I can’t even go into the plot that much because there is no real plot beyond what I’ve already told you.

I don’t know how much of the story is fictional. I do know that no one really got lost in the forest, at least not while making a Blair Witch documentary. What really happened was someone sent three actors out into the woods and gave them a GPS unit so as not to really get them lost. There were several sites in the forest, each with some notes as to what they were supposed to do there. Most of the dialogue was up to them, which gave it a more natural feel.

I have no idea if there really is a Blair Witch or if it was just made up for the sake of the movie. I would imagine that many of the people that were ‘interviewed’ were also actors, or at least told what was going on. I tried doing a little research online, but all of the links that I came up with had to do with the movie.

Most of what made the movie popular was the self-publicity that the movie had built up around itself. Since everyone was talking about it, everyone wanted to see it. This allowed the moviemakers to make a movie on a small budget. The small budget seems to be what allows the movie to be remembered.

Yes, it was different. Yes, it was a big thing. However, take away all of the talk and the buildup and you’re left with a movie that isn’t that good. In my opinion, it’s only worth two stars.

Official Site

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trailer 

Apollo 18

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

 

I’ve been getting codes for free movies at Redbox.  Because of their limited selection, I’ve been renting movies that I might not otherwise rent.  (I’ve been hoping to rent Thor and Tron: Legacy, but they’re always out of Thor and I’ve only seen Tron: Legacy in Blu-Ray.)  Apollo 18 is one of those movies that I had seen advertised when it first came out.  I kind of knew that it was going to be one of those movies that I might only end up watching if I could get it for free.

In case you missed the coming attractions, no, this isn’t the fifth sequel to Apollo 13.  Officially, there were 17 Apollo missions.  Unofficially, there was an 18th mission to the moon that was never mentioned to the public.  The movie is comprised of ‘footage’ that was ‘leaked’ through a Web site, lunartruth.com.  (It’s like if Wikileaks had done their own version of The Blair Witch Project.)

Three astronauts are selected to go into space for a top-secret mission.  They’re to place equipment on the moon, most likely to spy on the Russians or something.  That’s the only reason they can think of for the secrecy.  They begin to question their mission when they find a Russian lunar module and a dead Russian.  Mission control is somewhat reserved with the details, which leads the astronauts to start asking questions among themselves.

Things go from bad to worse.  First, their recording devices are on the fritz.  Also, communication is patchy right before it goes out completely.  Also, their flag disappears and their lunar rover is flipped on its side.  It looks like it’s going to be one of those days.

As you may have guessed from this and other reviews, there is a similarity to The Blair Witch Project.  It’s presented as found footage edited together and presented to the public, in this case as a conspiracy.  It’s like, “Hey!   Guess what we didn’t know about.”

The three main actors are Warren Christie as Ben Anderson, Ryan Robins as John Grey and Lloyd Owen as Nate Walker.  Ryan Robbins was the only one I recognized, being that I watch Falling Skies and Sanctuary.  Warren Christie is from Alphas, which I don’t watch.  I don’t think Lloyd Owen was in anything that I would have watched, either.

I don’t want to say that the actors aren’t good, but they’re not huge names.  Nonrecognizability does add something to it.  Watching Robbins, I was constantly like, “Oh…  It’s that guy from Sanctuary again.”  With the other two, it was easier to believe that they were really two guys up on the moon.  (Grey stays in orbit while Walker and Anderson are on the moon, so I was alternating between belief and disbelief.)

This is one of those movies that’s more enjoyable the less you think about it.  I had several issues, mostly technical.  First, there’s no radio lag.  It’s conceivable that it was edited out, but it takes light about two seconds to get from the moon to Earth or from the Earth to the moon.  Thus, there should have been a four-second lag as the astronauts sent a message, then waited for a response.

Also, while on the moon, the astronauts don’t seem to be affected by the lower gravity.  The moon is one-sixth the mass of Earth.  This means that you weigh a sixth of what you would on the Earth, meaning you can jump higher and lift more mass than you would be able to on Earth.  I also remember from a Myth Busters episode that there was a reason actual astronauts walk funny on the moon.

It seemed like the astronauts were putting up their reflective masks a lot.  On Earth, we have an atmosphere to reflect, deflect, absorb or otherwise deal with harmful rays.  On the moon, no such protection exists, which is why the astronauts have a mirror over their faces.  It’s to keep out as much of that harmful radiation as possible.

There are a few other issues I had, but I don’t want to get into it.  I don’t want to completely ruin the experience for you, just in case you’re still set on watching the movie.  Personally, I kind of regret renting it, even though it was free.  I didn’t care much for the Blair Witch Project and I feel like I should have known that this would have been the same.  I’m pretty good about picking movies that I like.  This is one of the few cases where I let the coming attractions get the better of me.  If you’re not into found-footage movies, you might want to skip Apollo 18.

Official Site

Apollo 18 (2011) - Official Trailer [HD] 

Another Earth = Hah! No Retreat!

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

One of my pet peeves about movies is how a driver will often have a conversation with a passenger and, in the process, totally ignore the road for entire seconds at a time.  Being a driver, I know that it’s impossible to take your eyes off the road for more than a fraction of a second.  Another Earth starts with such a situation.  Rhoda Williams is driving home from a party after being accepted to MIT.  On the radio, a DJ announces that an Earthlike planet has been spotted and can be seen from where she is as a small blue dot, which she immediately starts looking for.  She has hit the trifecta of being 17, drunk and distracted.  It’s not long before she gets into an accident, putting the driver, John Burroughs, in a coma and killing his wife and son.

Cut to four years later.  Rhoda is getting out of jail.  She’s picked up by her parents and brother, who take her home.  She gets a job as a janitor in a local school.  It’s not the scientific career she once might have dreamed of, but it’s something.  (Her trying to find this job is the only time someone seriously tries to persuade her to go into something academic or intellectual.)  Rhoda still feels guilt over what she did.  She manages to find out where John lives.  He’s since recovered, but has no idea who she is.  (Since she was a minor, her name was withheld from the public.)

She makes it all the way to his door.  She knocks, but when he answers, she can’t do it.  She instead claims to be from a cleaning service offering free trials.  She pushes just hard enough to make him refuse.  He does call her back because of that “free” part and has her clean part of his house.  She does it because she’s not quick enough to get out of it.  This begins a strange, if ill-advised, relationship.

You’re probably wondering where this second Earth comes in.  It’s constantly in the background, but plays a very minor part in the story.  Rhoda and John talk about it occasionally.  John has a telescope and looks at it, seeing familiar landmasses.  Rhoda even enters a contest to go to the other Earth.  Mostly, the movie is about the two of them and how they get along.  It is eventually discovered that the inhabitants are basically duplicate versions of ourselves.  It looks like their lives may have diverged from ours the moment that the two Earths came close to each other, so it’s possible that the other Rhoda never crashed into the other John.

Because of this, the movie seems to drag a lot.  At least, it did for me.  After the accident, Rhoda can’t really resume her old life.  After the coma, John seems to lose the will to do much outside of a bottle.  There’s a slow progression of John getting off the couch and Rhoda starting to find a new purpose.

The movie does call for a good deal of suspension of disbelief.  There’s no explanation of or speculation on how the other Earth came to our solar system.  It’s implied that the planet somehow was moved, which would require a great deal of energy.  If a planet were moved in such a fashion, I don’t imagine the inhabitants would enjoy it .  It would probably be a very rough ride and would begin and end with everyone being thrown around.

Even ignoring that, a second Earth would undoubtedly have an effect on our planet.  There’s no mention of any effect on our orbit or tides.  I did, however, notice a very conspicuous absence of our moon.  (It looks like the other Earth brought its moon, though.)  Also, how is it that the alternate Earth ended up being far enough away from both our Earth and the sun?  It would have been a shame if it got too close to us and crashed or was too far away from the sun and everyone froze.  They do talk about the effects of going over, such as solar radiation and being in zero gravity.  The writers did at least have some sense of the need for research.

I know, I’m a stickler for scientific details.  As I said, it‘s mostly about the relationship between Rhoda and John.  Rhoda’s family doesn’t even seem to ask her why she’s coming and going at all hours of the night.  I remember first hearing about the movie, thinking that we were going to see a lot of people meeting themselves or about some great culture shock or something.  I was hoping that there would be more about the other Earth.  I wonder how many people won’t rent this thinking that it will be some science-fiction movie.  I was kind of let down that it wasn’t. 

Official Site

ANOTHER EARTH Official HD Trailer 

Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

Some stories are so strange that you just have to hear them. This movie is one of them. Imagine a nursing home where both Elvis Presley and a black JFK reside. Add to that a mummy who’s sucking the souls out of the other residents. It’s up to Elvis and Jack to save everyone. This isn’t some alternate history, though.

Elvis, played by Bruce Campbell, claims that he switched places with an impersonator named Sebastian Haff and that it was the impersonator who died of a drug overdose. No one believes him because his copy of the contract went up in a freak barbecue accident. As for JFK, who’s played by Ossie Davis here, he didn’t really die as a result of the attempt on his life. Instead, he was in a coma and had part of his brain replaced with sand. His skin was dyed black so that nobody could finish the job.

As for the mummy, Elvis finds out that two guys tried to steal the coffin of some no-name member of the Ho-Tep dynasty, but ended up going off of a bridge during their escape. (Elvis names the mummy Bubba.) The mummy was never recovered. It just so happens that the bridge was very close to the nursing home that JFK and Elvis live in.

The residents of the home are just what Bubba needs to restore himself: easy prey. The people of the home don’t provide much nourishment, but they don’t put up much of a fight, either. To make things easier for Bubba, no one thinks twice if someone there dies; it looks like old age. Jack and Elvis realize that no one will ever believe them, so they take on the challenge themselves.

It’s a strange idea for a movie, but it’s a good one. I find it somewhat amusing that all three of the main characters are either dead or supposed to be dead to varying degrees. Bubba is actually dead and looking to come back to life. Jack’s story sounds fishy, even though he believes it. Elvis’s story is at least plausible, although you have to wonder why he left no proof of who he was. (Couldn’t he be fingerprinted or something?)

I think it says something about the writing that, while there were jokes about the characters, the characters seemed to take themselves seriously. Elvis doesn’t mind having switched places, but regrets not being there for his wife and daughter. He takes the blame for all of his bad decisions. (Jack, on the other hand, is a little paranoid that LBJ may be out to get him, but what do you expect?)

The one thing I thought wasn’t necessary was that Elvis had an growth in a private area that had to be taken care of every day. You don’t really see anything, but parents might not be comfortable watching it with their children.

We don’t see much of Bubba and when Bubba does appear, it’s usually dark and the appearance is brief. This is probably why what few special effects there were came out so well. There’s not much of a history for Bubba other than what Elvis finds out on his fact-finding mission, which I suppose is just as well. An enemy like that doesn’t need much of a history.

The movie doesn’t quite fit into any category, although it does come close to science fiction and comedy. It’s a lot of things, but not really any category at the same time. It’s just a good movie. It runs about 90 minutes, which is the perfect length. I think that anyone who likes offbeat movies will love this one. 

Official Site

IMDb page

Being John Malkovich

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.


WARNING:  I’m going to give away a lot of detail about this movie.  I’m not sure that this will ruin it, but some people don’t like to know a lot about a movie going into it.  You’ve been warned.


Being John Malkovich is one of those movies that I’ve heard about, but didn’t really know much about.  I knew it was about a guy, played by John Cusack, that finds a way to literally get inside John Malkovich’s head for 15 minutes and that John Malkovich played himself.  I had always wondered how they made a 112-minute movie about that.  It turns out that this is only a small part of the story.

Craig Schwartz is the name of the guy that Cusack plays.  Craig is married to Lotte, who cares for injured animals.   He’s a puppeteer who performs on the street.  The stuff he performs is not suitable for general audiences.  When a father objects to his daughter seeing Craig’s act, Craig is forced to find a new line of work.  That search lands him a job in an office filing.  (He figures the dexterity required to work a puppet will carry over well, which it does.)

This is where it starts to get strange.  The office is on floor 7½ of an office building.  (How do you get to floor 7½ of an office building?  You have to hit the emergency stop and pry the door open with a crowbar.)  He gets a job at LesterCorp, which is run by one very strange Dr. Lester.  (Due to a secretary that can’t seem to understand anyone, Dr. Lester is worried that no one can understand him.)  One day, Craig discovers a door behind a filing cabinet.  Behind this door is a dirty, muddy crawlspace that puts Craig in John Malkovich’s head.  Craig can’t control Malkovich, but he sees and hears everything that Malkovich sees and hears.  After 15 minutes, he finds himself forcibly ejected just off the New Jersey Turnpike.

He makes his way back, not sure what to make of it.  He starts hitting on Maxine, a coworker.  (Lotte is just annoying enough that you can forgive him.)  In an act of desperation, Craig tells Maxine of the doorway.  They hatch a plan to charge $200 for people to experience life as John Malkovich.  People are so pleased with this that they have no shortage of customers.  Also, Maxine seems to enjoy making love to Malkovich while Lotte is in his body, creating a bizarre love triangle.

The only reason that Malkovich even catches on is that Craig goes into his body and  momentarily takes over, causing Malkovich to be come increasingly paranoid.  One night, he follows Maxine back to LesterCorps and finds out about the whole business of messing with his head.  (You’re probably wondering what would happen if John Malkovich went inside his own head.  You get to find out.)  This really makes him mad.

Lotte spills everything to Dr. Lester, who reveals that he not only knows about the portal, he has used it.  The portal leads to a series of ’vessels’, or people that will become ripe on their 44th birthday.  If someone is occupying the vessel at the stroke of midnight, that person takes over the vessel permanently.  How the portal was created or how a vessel is chosen is not explained.  It’s Dr. Lester’s plan to take over John Malkovich soon.

The only problem is that Craig has figured out how to take over John Malkovich long term.  Due to his experience as a  puppeteer, he can control John Malkovich as long as he wants.  Since few other people know about this, it seems strange to the world when John Malkovich starts going by John Horatio Malkovich and starts a career as a puppeteer.  He’s good at it, as Craig is doing the actual work, but no one saw this coming.  Will Dr. Lester be able to get Craig out of John Horatio Malkovich’s head in time?   I’ll leave that to you to find out if you want to watch the movie.

This is an interesting movie.  I don’t think everyone will enjoy it, though.  It’s just offbeat enough that it may turn some people off.  There are all sorts of questions like how is the vessel chosen?  Are there other portals?  How was the portal created?  The movie doesn’t go into this, which is probably a good thing.  I’m not sure this information would have necessarily furthered the story.

John Malkovich was a great choice for the vessel.  They needed someone that people knew, but not someone that was incredibly famous.  As a cabbie put it, he’s that guy from the jewel-heist movie.  (For those wondering, Malkovich points out that he hasn’t been in a jewel-heist movie.)  He’s also able to express the paranoia well.  (I find it ironic that he turns to Charlie Sheen for help, who asks him if he’s been using drugs.)

One thing I wonder is how much puppetry Malkovich and Cusack learned for their roles.  The puppetry is done well.  There are so many details like this that I think that this was a very well-done movie, even if it is a bit strange.  As I said, it’s not going to be for everyone.  Some people will probably turn it off fifteen minutes in while others will want to watch it a second time.  I’m not sure I’d recommend it to everyone, but there are a few people I know that might enjoy it.


Being John Malkovich - Trailer - HQ 

Django Unchained

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

Quentin Tarantino movies can be a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.  If you’ve seen the Kill Bill movies, you know they can be violent and excessive, which is great if you’re into that sort of thing.  Last week, my brother and I decided to see a movie.  Django Unchained was playing early enough that we could get a discount, so we managed to get up there for the 10:35 showing.  (We were also under the impression that we’d get out around lunchtime, but I’ll save that for later.)  I wasn’t sure what to expect of Django Unchained.  I had seen the cover of Vibe.  I had heard Tarantino speaking about the film on NPR.  I knew that this was going to be one of his more excessive films.

The movie is about a slave named Django.  A dentist turned bounty hunter named Dr. King Shultz is interested in purchasing Django; Shultz needs Django to identify three wanted criminals.  If Django is willing to help, he’ll get $75 and his freedom, so off they go to find the three bounties.  Along the way, Django tells Shultz of his wife, Broomhilda.  She was sold to another plantation as punishment for the two of them trying to run away.

When Shultz realizes how good Django is with a gun, he makes a new proposition.  Django is granted his freedom and money as promised, but if he wants to make more money, the two can team up to find more bounties.  The warrants stipulate dead or alive, but Shultz has a preference for dead.  Django likes the idea of killing racist white people, so he agrees.  They spend the winter capturing bad guys and saving up money.

Turns out that Broomhilda has been sold to a plantation owner named Calvin Candie.  Candie is charming, but is not a nice person.  As such, he would probably not be inclined to sell Broomhilda because they asked nicely.  So, the two of them devise a plan to pose as potential buyers of Mandingo fighters.  As it happens, Shultz is German and Broomhilda was raised by Germans, hence the name.  Shultz will offer to buy Broomhilda so that he might have someone to talk with in German as a side offer.

At this point, it’s hard to continue with recounting the plot without giving everything away.  The movie does go on for a while, but I don’t want to ruin some of the most gory action scenes in the movie.  To say that this is not a movie for children is an understatement.  Being that Shultz and Django are bounty hunters that tend to prefer dead over alive, we get to see a lot of killing and Tarantino is not shy about showing us blood.

Add to this the issue of slavery and all of the associated derogatory terms.  Django isn’t comfortable posing as a potential buyer of slaves, although he knows that he has to do this in order to save the woman he loves.  We also get to see people fighting to the death.  There’s even one scene where a slave is fed to the dogs.  I don’t think many children could handle the themes or the imagery.  Even as an adult, there were scenes that were uncomfortable.

Also, I get the impression that Tarantino was going for style rather that historical detail.  Sunglasses didn’t appear in the United States for something like sixty years after the events of the movie.  In one scene, someone is shot and not only sent flying, but sent flying it what would seem like the wrong direction.  (You can go to IMDb and look at the goofs section for more, if you want.)

This is one of those movies where everything fits in that everything is so out of place.  Leonardo DiCaprio is not know for playing villains.  German dentists turned bounty hunters weren’t known for helping out slaves.  Slaves weren’t known for speaking German, for that matter.  My brother and I both wondered why Shultz was so nice to Django.  He could very easily have left Django after finding the brothers.  It seemed strange that everything came together so well, but it all made for one coherent, if long, movie.

That’s the other thing.  The movie is just under three hours.  Even after the plot that I recounted here, there’s still another hour of movie.  I was joking with my brother that we should have gone to CVS, mostly because we were running late.  We decided against since it was so late.  With the coming attractions and everything, we didn’t get out until around 1:40.  The movie didn’t really drag at all.  It’s just that we didn’t realize that it was going to be so late.  If I had known, I would have gotten something before going into the movie.

This is a movie that I probably would want to see with my grandmother, but I could definitely see going to see with friends.  It’s one of those movies that you’ll probably know going into it whether or not you’ll enjoy it.  You can know roughly what to expect without ruining the surprise. 

Official Site

Official Trailer

Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.  

 

 

Celebrity often comes at a price.  There are many actors and musicians that can’t walk down the street without being stopped for an autograph.  Occasionally, you have people whose work doesn’t lend itself to being recognized.  Every knows Elmo, especially if you were around in the 1990s.  Unless you watch Sesame Street, you could be forgiven for not knowing that Kevin Clash is the voice and personality behind Elmo.

Being Elmo shows how he started making puppets at age 10, starting with his father’s coat.  This led to a job at a local TV station working a puppet.  He was eventually hired to be on Captain Kangaroo and another TV program.  After both shows were canceled, he got a job on Labyrinth, working with his idol, Jim Henson.  This led to him working on the show that inspired him in the first place:  Sesame Street.

One day, Elmo’s puppeteer was frustrated with the character.  He handed the puppet to Clash, who played around with the concept.  Clash came to the conclusion that Elmo should be all about love and friendliness.  The rest, as they say, is history.

I’m 38.  I haven’t watched Sesame Street in a long time.  I don’t recall what prompted me to add this to my Netflix queue.  I think I may have seen Clash on The Daily Show with John Stewart.  (Several of the scenes in the documentary look familiar, so I’m pretty sure I saw something on TV.)  I’m one of those people that could probably pass any of the show’s current actors and not recognize them, despite the show being so popular.

It is interesting to watch the movie.  Clash grew up wanting to know how the Muppets were made.  Clash could never figure out how to hide the exterior stitching.  (Henson used felt.)  This is someone who knew what he wanted to do and was fortunate enough to meet the right people.

Clash took on a lot of responsibility, meaning his personal life suffered.  He had to make time to see his daughter.  He even filed for divorce.  Interestingly, Clash was accused of inappropriate relationships with minors.  (This was all after the documentary was made.)  From what I can tell, he was cleared of everything and has since come out as gay.  The Sesame Street web site lists him as the puppeteer for Elmo.  (I’m not sure if Clash will be rejoining the show or if he was never taken off the site.)

This is where Netflix’s streaming service is good.  Most of the movies aren’t great, but ones like this are at least interesting.  You don’t realize what a big production the Muppets is.  Seeing one person go from watching the show to being on it and contributing in such a major way is a good way to spend 90 minutes.  Elmo tends to be a love-him-or-hate-him proposition, though.  Either you’re going to be a huge fan or you’re going to dread the next 90 minutes.  (Don’t worry.  They don’t blast his voice that much.)

I’d be interested to know more about what happened in the intervening years.  Even though I’m not sure what will become of Kevin Clash, I don’t think Elmo’s dead.  I could see this documentary maybe getting a sequel one day.  I have to wonder how differently history would have played, though, had Kevin Clash’s father had gotten mad about the coat. 

 

 

Being Elmo trailer

 

Sesame Street Web site

 

 

Battleship

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions accouint.


I remember seeing these mock coming attractions for a movie based on Where’s Waldo.  It was pretty clever.  They had Waldo as someone trying to evade several groups like the mob, if I recall.  The police may have been after him, too.  There was even another mock trailer for a movie from someone else based on Minesweeper.  It struck me as odd that you could essentially make a movie from any source material.  (I think the Minesweeper trailer may have been implying that Hollywood was doing just that.)

Then, one day, I saw a trailer for Battleship.  Except this one wasn’t a mock trailer.  It was an actual trailer for an actual movie called Battleship.  I asked myself if it was the same Battleship that I used to play as a kid.  Turns out, it was.  I had to see this just to see what they had done with the premise.  Instead of seeing it in the theaters, I waited for it to come out on DVD.

The most obvious reference to the board game was the name.  Since there were no characters or real plot in the game, most of the rest of the movie is new.  It starts with the announcement of an Earth-like planet being found far, far away.  A signal being sent to the planet in hopes of making friendly contact.  Meanwhile, Alex and Stone Hopper in a bar celebrating Alex’s birthday.  Alex has an interest in the beautiful Samantha.  Alex nearly gets arrested trying to impress her.  Stone gives him the option of joining him in the Navy instead of going to jail, which Alex accepts.  You see, Samantha’s father is an admiral.  This should impress her to no end.

We cut to the present day.  Alex is still a screw-up, but now he’s a lieutenant.  He’s serving aboard the USS John Paul Jones.  Stone is the commanding officer of the USS Sampson.  The two brothers and their respective ships are set to do training exercises with a Japanese ship.  Samantha’s father is there.  He’s the admiral running the training exercises.  While underway, five alien ships show up.  One crashes into a satellite and destroys a good chunk of Hong Kong in the process.  The remaining four end up in the Pacific Ocean not far from the training exercises.

The aliens set up a force field encompassing Hawaii and the surrounding ocean, cutting the Sampson, John Paul Jones and a Japanese ship off from the rest of the world.  Alex is sent over to have a look at one of the alien ships.  When Alex touches the ship, the aliens very quickly destroy the Sampson and the Japanese ship, leaving some survivors.   When Alex makes it back to the John Paul Jones, he finds out that the commanding and executive officers are both dead, leaving him in command.  It’s up to Alex to defend the Earth.

There weren’t many references to the board game that I caught initially.  In fact, Alex points out that actual battleships have been retired.  (The modern-day portion begins on the USS Missouri, a battleship that‘s now a museum.  The three active-duty ships are all destroyers.)  There is one line where someone says something to the effect of, “They’re not going to sink this battleship.”  The aliens also fire something similar to the pegs used in the game.  Other than that, it wasn’t until I started looking at IMDb and other sites that I realized the other references.

I came into the movie not really expecting much.  I knew that the connection to the board game would be thin.  I just had to see what they did with it.  That being said, it was a pretty decent action movie.  What do you think you’ll get from a movie called Battleship?  It’s mostly fighting with the story being about a kid who goes from wasting his talent to leading a crew to victory.

Yes, there were plot holes.   For starters, how did Alex go from getting in trouble at every chance to not only being a lieutenant, but the commanding officer of a ship?  I’ve heard of people being given the choice of military service as an alternative to jail hoping that the service will straighten them out.  Usually, it does.  However, right before the main action, Alex starts a fight with the captain of the Japanese ship, which does not impress Samantha’s father.  In fact, Stone informs Alex that he’ll likely face court-martial upon their return.

It actually surprised me that they used a board game.  It could have gone horribly wrong.  At least with something like a comic book, you have a well-structured universe in place.  This isn’t to say that the movie was spectacular.  The movie seemed to be more a vehicle for the CGI and some in-jokes related to the game.  The movie was at least enjoyable.  There are worse ways to spend 131 minutes.  I’m just not holding my breath for Scrabble:  The Movie.


 Battleship Movie - trailer HD
 

Craigslist Joe (2012)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

My mother told me about Craigslist Joe.  It sounded like a movie that I wouldn’t mind missing, but she thought I would enjoy watching it.  The movie is a documentary about a guy named Joseph Garner.  He sets out one December to see if he can live for an entire month using Craigslist to find everything he needs, including food and lodging.  He even finds the project’s cameraman through Craigslist.  He brings no credit cards or cash and has just the clothes on his back and a laptop.

It’s difficult for him at first.  The first day, it took him almost the entire day to get food and shelter.  Things get a little easier for him.  Once he gets the hang of it, he’s usually able to find lodging.  (He only has to go one night without a bed to sleep on.)  Food ranged from a bag of fruit to home-cooked meals.  He also makes it from the West Coast to the East Coast and back with some effort.

I have to give the guy credit for trying something new.  He wasn’t out to prove anything.  He just wanted to see how kind strangers would be.  Here’s the thing, though.  The cameraman and his equipment are able to fit into a car, but people have to know their being filmed.  I have to wonder how many people offered help knowing they’d be in the movie.  (For that matter, how much are we missing because someone refused permission?)

When posting requests for help or looking for listings, Joe doesn’t seem to mention the cameraman, but it does have to be dealt with at some point.  You don’t see any overtly mean people, which may have to do with mean people not giving permission to be seen on film.  (The worst case is a couple of women that at first refuse lodging, but eventually come back to allow Joe and cameraman to spend the night.)

There’s also a staged feel to it.  There was one scene where they were having trouble getting a car started.  The cameraman stayed out to film the car going away, meaning they had to stop to let him back in.  I also noticed that on IMDb, there are several people that were in other movies.  (One woman had a bit part in Home Alone 2.)  I do think it would have been different if it were done as a hidden-camera type of documentary, although I understand why that couldn’t be done.  There would be too many other issues.

The movie was occasionally entertaining, but the for bulk of the movie, I felt like getting up and walking out.  I think if I had been watching it alone, I would have.  For this reason, I don’t recommend it.  Even at 90 minutes, it seemed way too long.  It came off as a long commercial for all of the wonderful things you can do with Craigslist with few apparent negative aspects.  How easy would it have been to take advantage of the guy? 

IMDb page

Adobe Photoshop Elements 6

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

I take a lot of pictures.  I used to use a lot of different versions of Photoshop and other picture-editing software.  (I used to love to see how many free versions I could get.)  When I started posting pictures to Flickr, I decided it was time to get a paid version.  I knew Photoshop the best, so I decided that I'd buy from them.

I went with Elements because I didn't really need a fancy version.  I needed something that could do color correction and maybe cropping a few pictures as needed.  Most of the free programs I used couldn't do what I wanted.

To give you an example of how little I need, I have an SLR, but I don't even shoot in the RAW format.  I usually shoot in jpeg because I don't really want to spend a lot of time editing photos.  (I'm also limited to 2GB per card, which makes file size a big concern.)

For the most part, Elements does what I need.  I've had problems with the free versions, such as the programs not retaining a lot of the metadata.  Photoshop seems to retain much of the important data, such as which camera the photo was taken with, but doesn't seem to retain lens information.  (I have yet to find a program that retains everything.  It's simply a question of how much and exactly what is lost.)

As for the editing, you can do a quick color balance which seems to work most of the time.  There's also a Smart Fix that allows you to correct several things at once, such as color and contrast.  You can choose any whole percentage between 0 and 100, which gives you a good amount of control.  Sometimes, I'll play around with the actual colors in the picture because the shortcuts don't work, but this is pretty rare.

Cropping is pretty easy.  There's a specific tool you can use which allows you to rotate the crop area and even resize it once you've selected an area.  I find this useful mostly when I'm taking pictures for eBay auctions.  A lot of times, getting just the right crop means having to rotate it a little bit either way until I can get it just where I need it.  I can almost always get it in one crop.

I've rarely run into a problem using Elements.  The only time that this has happened was when I wanted to try something called tilt shift.  This allows you to make a photograph of a full-sized object look like it was a miniature.  Most of the instructions are geared for the full version.  When I try to follow them, there's usually some part of the instructions that either doesn't work or doesn't make sense for my version.  I have yet to find instructions that allow me to do this with Elements 6.

Fortunately, this is the only major limitation I've had with the software.  This is the version you want if you need some software, but don't plan on doing enough that you want to shell out a lot of money for it.  You should be able to find the latest version of Elements for under $100.  If you have any software meant just for viewing photos, keep it.  Photoshop takes a while to load and isn't really meant just for looking at stuff.  For this reason, I still use the photo viewer that came with my computer.


 Adobe Web site

Rubik's Cube Key Chain

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

Rubik’s cube is a very popular toy. It’s spawned all sorts of things including a key chain. The original Rubik’s Cube is a 3 by 3 by 3 cube made up of smaller cubes that rotate around a central mechanism. Each side has a different color. Either you or someone else mixes them up and you have to move them back into the original configuration. This key chain is simply a smaller version of the cube with a key ring attached. (I’ve put a link to the original cube at the bottom of this review if you want more details.)

In school, this was a popular prize to give out for contests. I actually won a few, but I didn’t seem to be able to keep them that long. The problem was overuse. While the cube does work like its larger counterpart, the pieces eventually pop out. You can put them back, but they’ll keep popping back out. I remember ending up with just the central mechanism a few times.

Assuming that the cube stayed together long enough, there was also the problem of the stickers peeling off. When this happens, you’re left with a cube that has six black sides. Sure, you can try to glue the stickers back on, but it’s just not the same.

I don’t think I ever had a Rubik’s key chain that lasted more than a few weeks. Between my using it and the normal wear and tear of being a key chain, it takes a lot of damage. The normal cubes seem to last a while. I guess no one ever figured out how to translate that into a smaller unit.

Still, I had fun with them while they lasted, although I never really used them as a key chain. It was just great to be able to have a Rubik’s Cube that I could carry around with me and occasionally sneak into class. Later, I decided that it would be better to attach it to my backpack and not use it. Doing so would allow the key chain to last longer. (I think I may even have one or two still laying around.)

In retrospect, I think the Rubik’s key chains were meant more for novelty or display than for use.

Official Web Site

Cyborg

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

One of the things about having a limited income is that you tend to look for free things.  There’s nothing wrong with getting a book from the library if you can’t afford to pay the $20 to buy it new.  Likewise, if you can find an interesting movie on demand for free or on a cable channel that you’re already paying for, you might as well watch it.  I had heard of Cyborg a long time ago.  I knew that it starred Jean-Claude Van Damme and that involved a cyborg, but that was about it.  When it came on one of the Encore channels, I decided to record it for later watching.

The movie takes place an unspecified amount of time in the future.  Humanity has been all but wiped out by a plague called the Living Death or Walking Death or something.  A man and a woman are sent to New York City from Atlanta to retrieve a cure for the plague.  Shortly after retrieving the data, they’re surrounded by a gang.  She manages to escape.  He’s not so lucky, though.

Enter Jean-Claude Van Damme as Gibson Rickenbacker, who’s basically a gun for hire.  (They’re called slingers.)  He comes across the woman, one Pearl Prophet.  Turns out that she’s the titular cyborg.  She’s been enhanced, although it looks like she’s just a robot.  She’s captured by the gang, who manage to get away from Rickenbacker.  The gang’s leader, Fender Tremulo, wants the cure for himself.  He kind of likes the world the way it is and wouldn’t mind the power he’d get from controlling the cure.

So, off they head to Atlanta.  Rickenbacker meets up with another woman, Nady, who wants to save Pearl and, by extension, the rest of humanity.  Rickenbacker just wants to see Fender dead.  So, off they head to Atlanta, hoping to catch up with Pearl and Fender.  Several fight scenes ensue with Fender and his gang almost all killed.  The threat is eliminated and the day is saved.  Rickenbacker heads back out to help anyone he can.

If you’re not in to fight movies, this one doesn’t offer too much.  Even if you are into fight movies, this movie may not offer too much.  There’s almost no plot except as a backdrop for all the fights.  Most post-apocalyptic movies have some background, however brief, about the decline of humanity.  Here, all we get is how there’s a virus and how the lead bad guy likes it that way.

Also, Rickenbacker and Nady are able to catch up with Fender, even though Fender is on a boat and Rickenbacker is on foot.  Plus, Rickenbacker has to fight some bad guys, further delaying him.  I found it very odd that they were able to get what appears to be an eight- to twelve-hour lead.  Granted, the boat was slow, but I’d think that it would still have an advantage over two people that are walking and not necessarily in a straight line.

The special effects look so bad that I was left wondering if they looked bad even by 1989 standards.  There are a few instances where the use of a green screen was obvious.  In the final fight scene, it looked like Fender was standing, even though he was hanging from a meat hook.  (He should have been slacking.)  It may just be that the film quality has degraded in 20 years, but the movie quality doesn’t look so good.

The movie is marginal at best.  Nothing is really great or horrible.  The writing was among the worst that I’ve seen.  There were parts that were confusing, such as flashbacks explaining Rickenbacker’s past.  We get that Fender tormented Rickenbacker’s loved ones, but it wasn’t immediately clear who survived and who didn’t.  All we get is that Fender is a homicidal pervert who likes to torment people.  You may also notice that many of the names come from guitars.  (Fender and Gibson were the most obvious to me.)

Van Damme was the only actor that I recognized and he’s known more for his fighting than acting.  This was especially evident in this movie.  He looked like he was told to tone it down so many times that he was practically trying to sleepwalk through many of the non-fight scenes.  Fender, on the other hand, is just so darned hyper that he’s about to explode at times.

The movie could have been more interesting if there was more background and information.  Why did Pearl have to go all the way to New York City to retrieve the data?  I would think that something that important would be stored closer to the CDC in Atlanta.  Also, why did she have to be turned into a cyborg?  Even in 1989, we had some concept of portable media.  If it were me,  I would have kept the data very close and in multiple locations if possible. I’d have sent as many teams as I could to get the data from wherever it was so as to avoid everyone being captured.

On that note, why did Fender have to take Pearl all the way back to Atlanta?  I can see that Atlanta would have the production facilities to make and distribute the cure, but you can’t tell me that there was no way for him to at least retrieve the data between NYC and Atlanta, then transmit it back.  The writers could have at least given Fender someone technologically proficient enough to give a weak reason why.  (“Looks like they have a security encryption.  We’ll have to go to Atlanta to get the code.”)

This is one of those movies that if they were playing it while you were waiting for jury duty, you’d probably wish you had brought a book.   I can’t quite bring myself to not recommend it, but I’m going to have to say no just because it’s not really good enough to seek out.  If it comes on TV and there’s nothing else, give it a try.  Otherwise, don’t bother.

Cyborg Trailer

IMDb page

Detroit Motor City = Trot To Mediocrity (Detropia movie review)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

A while ago, my brother and I were talking about Detroit and how it was possible to buy property for $100 or less.  The down side was that you could very well have had to sink six figures into repairing or building a house.  I don’t know how serious he was about doing this.  I think it was just something he was looking at out of passing interest.  However, this was recent enough to be taken as a sign of the city’s current troubles.  Detroit has been on a downhill slide for years now and has filed for bankruptcy.  Well, someone decided to turn a camera to the streets of The Motor City, resulting in Detropia.  It’s not a pretty picture.

The movie starts with the demolition of a house; one of the demolition men saying how there’s no shortage of lists of similar houses.  He finishes one list and goes back for another.  This seems to be the only boom industry in the city.  (Yes, the bailout of the car companies saved millions of jobs, but we may have serious competition from abroad.)  Detroit went from being the fastest-growing city in the world in 1930 to the fastest shrinking city in the U.S. in 2010.

This leaves a big problem for Mayor Bing.  There are a lot of blocks that are either entirely vacant or have just one house.  He wants the residents to consolidate so that services like fire rescue and mass transportation will have an easier job.  The people living in those houses aren’t willing to move, though.  Mayor Bing points out is that there’s not going to be a pot of gold waiting for those that are holding out, but it may not be that easy.  Some of the people have grown up in that area.

There’s also the cost of moving to consider.  There’s the president of a UAW chapter, George McGregor.  He’s shown telling the members that the plant wants to cut wages.  This could mean a loss of $20 to $150 per week, depending on the person’s job.  The workers are hurting so much that one moves to not even vote on it.  (If they can’t afford to stay where they are, how are they going to move?)

Another person featured in the documentary was Tommy Stephens, owner of the Raven Lounge.  He was able to buy a cheap house, for I think $6,000.  (It did look like he was going to have to do some renovation.)  He’s able to hang in there, but a lot of people aren’t.  He was commenting that a lot of the houses on his block were vacant.  One was even set on fire.

I get the impression from this documentary that Detroit is in trouble, but I know that from reading the newspaper.  I think we all know that.  The documentary just shows the level of decay that the city is in.  We get to see an abandoned train station.  There are also gutted apartment buildings that were probably nice at one time.  This is where the movie is interesting to watch, if you’re in to that sort of stuff.

There really aren’t any solutions offered.  Yes, it’s a complicated issue.  It’s not like anyone has some sort of magic wand they can wave over the city to fix everything.  The movie doesn’t really even seem to point at any one cause of the decay.  There’s a sense that your city could be next, but there’s not much to be learned.  It’s not like if you do A, B and C, you’ll go bankrupt.

The movie does also sort of ramble a little bit.  We see clips of the Stephens at work, then going to a car show.  We also see some tourists at a coffee shop and the woman working there thankful that the opera house across the street occasionally sends her customers.  We also see McGregor fielding calls from union members asking if the have a vision (as in eyeglasses) plan, which had to be cut as part of a deal.

The documentary ends with Stephens talking about a hypothetical neighbor’s house being on fire.  He says that if you don’t help put out the fire, your house could be next.  The thing is, how do you put out a fire when you don’t have the tools?  Yes, it’s a complicated issue, but I would have liked to see more.  The movie served as a good starting point, showcasing some of the problems Detroit has, having to worry about services and even having to cut some back.  I’m wondering if there are other documentaries about Detroit out there. 

Detropia - Trailer

Official Site

For the Bible Tells Me So (2007)

Note:  This review was originally posted to by Epinions account.

I’ve always wondered what the big deal about homosexuality was. There are people out there that think it’s horrible, deviant behavior and equate it with molesting kids and having sex with farm animals. I’m not one of those people. I’m not gay, either, but I decided to watch this movie. Prejudice in all its forms is something that interests me and I wanted to see how people use the Bible to promote their own version of it.

The movie focuses on several people, such as Chrissy Gephardt and Gene Robinson. Robinson, the first openly gay person to be ordained a bishop in the Anglican church, tells how he realized that women did nothing for him sexually and how he knew that he couldn’t tell his friends. Gephardt, the lesbian daughter of Dick Gephardt, talks about how she first realized that she was attracted to women and wanted to be in a relationship with one.

With the Gephardts and the Reitans, the movie also shows what the family went through. Having a gay child may not be the best thing for one’s political career, but Chrissy Gephardt was able to come out and not hurt her father’s career. As for the Reitans, their son was gay and came out, but faced hatred in doing so. His mother actually found someone had written a particular slur in their driveway.

A lot of people need to see this movie, but probably won’t. The trouble with issues like this is that there are so many people that are so entrenched or are so instilled with fear that they won’t watch this movie. Those are the people that most need to see this movie. It’s entirely possible that preachers will keep their congregations from seeing it. Those that hate gays and lesbians will feel so strongly that they’ll believe that there’s no point.

If homosexuality is so obviously wrong, then what’s the harm in watching this documentary? Wouldn’t someone come out of it and still feel that they’re justified? People know that documentaries like this put a face on the groups that people hate. They tell the story of people that are put down simply because they’re one of "them". Our history has always been Us versus Them.

Which brings me back to my original point: Why homosexuality? Many people, including one in the movie have pointed out that shellfish are considered an abomination alongside homosexuality. It’s pointed out in the movie that abomination simply means different, but the point is that you don’t see people picketing Red Lobster with signs saying "God hates shrimp" and "Crayfish = Hell".

Why is homosexuality so hated? I think it’s because people simply need someone to hate. Our history includes all sorts of groups going at each other. Millions of jokes pit man against woman. Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and other ethnic groups have been looked down upon. Catholics and Protestants have been going at it long before I was born. Gays are simply one of many groups that are looked down upon and it‘s not really fair. I would encourage people to watch this movie and really try to understand it. At the very least, it will help you to make an informed decision.

Official Web Site

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

WARNING:  I am going to give away major details about the movie.  Most of these major details are ones that you should see coming, as the movie follows actually history to a certain degree.  However, if you don’t want to have all the details before seeing the movie, you might want to hold off on reading this review.

There seemed to be a lot of interest in Abraham Lincoln at once.  Daniel Day-Lewis starred in a movie called Lincoln, directed by Stephen Spielberg, about the President’s final months in office.  I’ve also seen a few Time special publications about him.  One movie that I found interesting was Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  The movie roughly follows history.  It seems that many of the major characters were real people, although the move claims that Lincoln hunted and killed vampires around the time he first moved to Springfield, Illinois.

The story goes that his mother was killed by a vampire.  Young Abraham witnesses the murder and seeks revenge as soon as he’s old enough to get a gun and some bullets.  Problem is that it’s not so easy to kill a vampire.  All he does is enrage his mother’s killer, who now turns on her son.  Fortunately, Henry Sturgess saves Lincoln.  Lincoln convinces Sturgess to train him to kill vampires, which he reluctantly does.

He makes Lincoln understand that hunting vampires has to be his only pursuit.  He can’t have friends.  He can’t have family.  He can’t have a life outside of doing what Sturgess tells him to do.  This suits Lincoln just fine until he meets Mary Todd.  He’s able to hunt and kill vampires for a while longer, but eventually proposes to her and they marry.

It turns out that Sturgess has a secret.  Once revealed to Lincoln, he abandons his hunt and goes into politics.  He wants to abolish slavery, but it might come at a price.  The South is home to a lot of vampires and those vampires use slaves as a source of food.  Take away slavery and they may revolt.  When Lincoln becomes president, the South splits, eventually leading to the Civil War.

Vampires don’t hold political office, but they do contribute money to make sure their interests are protected.  They even enlist in the war, as they have a better survival rate than normal humans.  Lincoln does have a few tricks up his sleeve and is able to defeat the vampires and win the war.

As I said in the warning, the movie uses history as a guide.  The movie is not meant to be historically accurate to the last sentence.  It’s more like different motives are assigned to historical characters.  It should come as no surprise that the South goes to war with the North.  It should come as no surprise that the North wins.  The surprise comes in how the North does it.  There is some suspense in how.  These are the details I don’t want to give away.  (In the last few minutes of the movie, Mary Todd Lincoln is calling to her husband that they’re going to be late to the play.)

I figured that the movie was going to be one of those stories about how you didn’t know all these things about our 16th president.  It was more of an alternate history where vampires exist.  Yes, they’re kept hidden from people and use large amounts of sunscreen to go out in daylight.  Still, the main draw of the movie is the action sequences.  There’s one where Lincoln is fighting a vampire in the middle of a horse stampede.   In another, Lincoln and his allies are fighting many vampires.  Both sequences are very well done.  I’d say both are worth renting the movie for if you’re into action movies.

The movie is definitely worth watching.  This was one of those movies I wanted to see, but not enough to pay full price for it.  The movie was released in 3D, which would probably have been worth it.  It’s just that I’m not working full time right now and have to make choices.  I’d rather get the 2D version from Redbox with a free code than pay to see it in 3D.  I just wish that more movies would release the 3D version on DVD.  (I guess it’s too difficult to distribute special glasses with the movie.) 

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter - Official Trailer (HD) Benjamin Walker  

A Day Without A Mexican

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.


I had heard about this movie when it first came out, although I don’t think that it ever got much publicity. A Day Without a Mexican is a movie about what might happen if everyone of Hispanic descent disappeared from California. In the movie, a mysterious fog surrounds the state, cutting off any access to the outside world. Around that time, any Hispanic person disappears. This causes the economy to shut down.

No one has any idea what happened or where they went. A comedian jokes that his burrito is missing. Someone else holds up a sign for his missing Chihuahua. An expert notices that sombreros are shaped a lot like flying saucers and concludes that when we say ‘aliens’, we’re actually talking about aliens from outer space.

There is hope, though; one Hispanic woman remains. She allows herself to be tested in the hopes that something might be found that could bring everyone back. Meanwhile, the economy is in shambles since there isn’t anyone to pick fruit, clean houses, or do any of the other support jobs that are needed.

The movie gets its name from the fact that people in California use ‘Mexican’ to refer to all Hispanics. Ihave noticed that a lot of people don’t seem to have much respect for nationalities other than their own until they go missing. (There’s a senator with an aide that notes that hating immigrants got him elected to senator. Now, loving them may get him elected president.)

The one big problem with the movie is that it relies very heavily on one subject and that subject is showing how important one group of people is to California and, by extension, the rest of the nation. The movie is funny in a lot of places and it only drags in a few places. However, there’s this big focus on just one topic.

I found it hard to believe that there were so many people that were left that helpless. Yes, I know. I’m being naive here. If that many people disappeared from one area, a lot of people would be in serious trouble. You have to admit, though, that the few examples shown were a bit exaggerated.

We never really find out what happened to those that disappeared. The only possible explanation as to why is that everyone else needed a good jolt. It’s a good movie, but I could see a lot of people getting bored with the movie very easily. It’s a shame since the movie has such a great ending. Despite all of the flaws, I can still give the movie four stars.


Official Site

Official Site (Spanish)

Trailer